Lena Oxton: Before Tracer
by PositiveGuy
Summary: Tracer is one of Overwatch's greatest heroes. But how did she become a Heroine? How did she develop her compassion? Her overwhelming positivity? This is the story of Lena Oxton and her journey to become Tracer
1. Chapter 1: Recruitment

**Lena Oxton: Before Tracer**

 **Overwatch's pilot recruitment facility. 11.47 hrs**

Today seemed like it was gonna be a great day.

Marcus was able to sleep 8 hrs last night, a great achievement considering his two children back home. Seems that at their age no amount of exercise can tire out the yearning for fun. But yesterday his kids met their match, which would be church day, Sarah, his wife, wanted to start going to church every Wednesday. They weren't an overly devoted family, which meant a huge change in routine. It was so boring that it zapped the children's energy almost instantly. Marcus himself almost fell asleep, he even felt a little jealous of the Omnics, they could just power down or pretend to listen while they did other things. Not that they would go to church anyways, maybe to see that Tekharta guy. But it paid off when he woke up the next day and his children were still asleep, and he could just sneak out peacefully and let his wife deal with breakfast cooking.

Then, to top it off, nobody has shown up yet, this was called the Overwatch generation for a reason, there were a lot of teenagers wanting to pass for adults an enlist themselves. Overwatch's fame as the heroes of the Omnic Crisis certainly attracted the attention of impressionable youngsters, and generally the last day of recruitment was the most popular one. But none seem to come today, he had spent his last 2 hours reading magazines and eating chips. A good day all around, but before he could reach the reason number 33 of why Overwatch's heroines were so beautiful. A squeaky voice called for his attention, more belonging to a girl than a woman, with a British accent. He put the magazine down with a little groan, and looked down.

"Um, excuse me, is this the recruitment facility of Overwatch?" said a girl with messy brown hair, thin body and tad too high-pitched voice.

"What does the sign say?" said Marcus grumpily, before composing himself, she didn't intentionally interrupt him from his reading, so he asked, in a nicer tone. "Wanna join the flight program?"

She almost immediately responded "Yes sir!" doing a salute and staring purposefully at the background, like it was essayed. He has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, another kid over-hyped about the military. Anyways, it was the sergeant's job to weed the fools out, not his. So he started the routine questions.

"Full name?"

"Lena Oxton, at your service" she said with a little bow.

He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes again.

"Country of origin?" He was pretty sure she was British but just in case of emigration he asked anyways.

"The Great Britain sir!" again doing a little salute.

"Age?"

"Whatever age I need to be" she said with a sly grin.

"You need to be at least 18, sorry, but you look like 15 to me and if you are not willing to tell me your age…" he said, pretending to close the folder.

Lena jumped to the booth almost in panic "No wait! I'm 17, I turn 18 in three days! I just don't want to wait another year before enrolling! Surely you can make a 3 day exception on the age department. Right luv?" she said with a cute smile.

He chuckled an sat back down, Lena slowly backed away, as in fear that he may change his mind and make a run for it. He liked the passion on that kid, they could use that in the army.

"Okay fine, if you have all the other requirements, I will approve you" A bright smile appeared on her face and she look ready to hug him. Better get on with the questions before getting sued.

"Where did you get your bachelor's degree?" he asked.

"Local university, a degree in Aerospace Engineering" she said a little smugly, crossing her arms.

He had to admit to himself he was a little impressed, air force prefers scientific degrees, which the kid seemed to know. She must have decided to enlist years ago. And so young too.

"Okay on the interview you will need to…"

"Show the diploma with a score of 3.4 or above?" she said quickly with a smile.

"Yes, that and…" he continued

"Being an officer, commissioned at the rank of second lieutenant, passing with the pilot aptitude test with a score of a minimum of 25 in the pilot portion and a combined score of 50 in the pilot-navigator portion of the Air Force Qualifying test, passing a battery of physical, psychological tests including a Flying Class I physical. Am I missing something luv?" She said with her hands on her hips, a smug smile and a slightly tilted head, clearly she knew it all by heart.

He smiled at her, while closing the file. "Nope, that's all, wish you the best of lucks" he said "Your interview will be in 2 days at 12 pm, don't come late" he said offering his hand.

"Thank you so much luv!, when I fly the fastest plane ever, I will give you an autograph" she said with a wide grin and shaking with both hands.

With that she departed, in a half-walk, half-run outside the facility.

He smiled one more time, she was a nice kid, not as tedious to inform as many candidates who came knowing nothing.

It was still a great day.


	2. Chapter 2: The first day

_So, quick authors note here, I have just started writing Fanfiction, which means I have no idea yet of how to get a Beta reader or generally how to write good stories or a decent authors note. I would appreciate a lot If any of the readers of the story have some tips on how to write good content. I will read all reviews and answer all of them. Also English is not my first language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes._

 **Chapter 2:**

 **OPTF-Front gate- 8.45 hrs**

"Blimey!, so this is it" Lena muttered to herself while standing in front of the Overwatch Pilot Training Facility or OPTF for short. She was standing just outside the big, very-modern-looking building. From her point of view she had only been able to see very tall walls and huge buildings. The tallest one had the shape of a scalene triangle. It had windows in every visible part and was supported by white-coloured steel beams. The sun reflecting on such a magnificent building made Lena feel gobsmacked. The other buildings were huge as well, but nowhere near as impressive as the triangular one. The one on the right side was dull grey and seemed to have no windows at all, in great contrast with the majestic middle building. And the one on the edge was a rectangular building with about 8 floors, Lena estimated. It was painted in white and was overall pretty generic.

Lena took a deep breath and started walking as slowly as possible towards the front gate, she was wearing a brown jacket a yellow blouse, her favourite jeans and her newest pair of sneakers. She felt a little too informal seeing as every other cadet going on the tour seemed to lean more into the formal side of clothing. While she walked she tried to comb her hair a little bit so it looked a little more decent instead of just sticking out everywhere and cursing under her breath when she only made things worse.

She handed the security guard her ID, and entered while taking deep breaths. " _Come on Lena, you are a perfectly capable soldier why the hell are you nervous?"_ she thought trying to reassure herself. " _Oh I don't know, maybe because Overwatch isn't an organization of capable people, it was created for the BEST"_ a little voice inside her head said in a sarcastic tone. She really hated the voice in her head some times.

She realized that she had been walking with no clear direction for a while now and stopped to quickly search for the other newbies. She easily found them since they were a rather large group, all of them with a tense posture and a determined face eager to prove their worth. She jogged to them and started going about the questions she wanted to ask one more time and how she was gonna phrase them. She usually had a problem when addressing officers since she spoke a tad to informal for their taste. She would make sure that was not a problem.

At least not on her first day anyways.

"Goooood Morning Cadets" said a man from the opposite side of the group

All the cadets turned to the direction of the voice at almost the exact time. Lena had to jump a little bit to see who was talking. Since some of the cadets were frigging tall. She saw an Afro-American man who was standing with his hands on his back, with muscles so big his green military shirt seemed to almost rip at his every move. He was tall, and had a very dense moustache. He was biting on a cigar so tick it was surprising how he could talk without dropping it. Lena estimated his age to be in the early forties, as evidenced by his balding head covered by a military cap. He had very passionate eyes, like a fire was burning behind them just itching to get out. He eyed the cadets one by one, like trying to see the potential soldier that he could build with clay. All the cadets responded with as much energy as they could muster. "Good Morning Sir!".

The sergeant smiled a little, and then said "Okay cadets, I´m sergeant Barnes, and I'm gonna be your tour guide for the day. Welcome to the Overwatch team!"


End file.
